After a year of sharing a mind and body and working together to stop countless enemies, the time has come for Yuni and Yugi to face each other in a duel. Can Yuni defeat the original King of Games? Can Yugi defeat monsters beyond his comprehension?

This is actually the first time I’ve done an two-part episode for an episode without a duel. The real reason for that is that these episodes were originally intended to only be one, but that one episode got so long that I had to split it up.

These episodes were inspired by the finale of the Capsule Monster series (for obvious reasons). I had decided that while I wanted an ultimate game, I wanted to make it at least a little different from what was done the first time, so I spread it out across the entire map, instead of keeping it in one arena. The entire point of the “king” commanding his “game pieces” was meant to reference the fact that Capsule Monsters was a chess-like game. I wanted to recapture that chess-like element.

One thing of note was all the monsters that appeared in these episodes. I worked hard to make sure that I found a match of a card that was old enough to be in Capsule Monsters that fit with each of the characters. I gave Freed the Matchless General to Alexander the Great because he was a matchless commander of armies, and I gave him Zera the Mant to reflect his darker side as Yami Alexander. Julius Caesar got The Agent of Creation – Venus for more reasons than it just being a Roman goddess. The Caesar family claimed descent from Venus. As for Napoleon and St. Joann, not only are they two of the most famous figures in French history, but Napoleon actually declared Joann of Arc a national figure of France. Charlemagne got Kuraz the Light Monarch because he was the Holy Roman Empire, and Kuraz is actually meant to represent Christ. I will admit though, giving Genghis Khan his Garma Sword was a bit of a tap out because I had no ideas for what to give him.

Finally, let’s talk about the largest implications of this episode: the fact that the Power of the King is in fact Another Hope. I’m just going to admit right now that I didn’t even come up with that idea until I rewatching Capsule Monsters a few weeks ago to study up for these episodes. I realized that it would be interesting to have the Power of the King play a part in the plot, and then I realized that this could be a great chance to give backstory to Another Hope at the same time. The ironic thing to me, is that most people online seem to consider Capsule Monsters to be non-canon (I personally disagree), but if my story was to be a real series, not only would it be canon, but the Power of the King is now one of the most important items in all of Yu-Gi-Oh.

Yuni finally reunites with Yugi, but unfortunately its not how he imagined. Now the two of them, along with Yugi’s friends are thrown into the game of survival and strategy against none other but Ottiuk the Spirit of Darkness.

Yeah, that’s right, this episode was a parody of The Legend of Zelda. Zelda is one of my favorite video game series, and I thought it was a great idea to pay homage to it, and it’s upcoming 30th anniversary in this episode. As child, even before I had actually played any Zelda games, I, as I’m sure countless others had before me, realized how similar the Celtic Guardian looked to Link. It’s uncanny. Not only is he a swordsman wearing all green and a pointed hat, but he also had pointed ears and blond hair. Now, all these years later, I was thinking about that again, I thought about how funny it would be to have a character using a Legend of Zelda themed deck that focused on Celtic Guardian. I decided against that idea, but I quickly realized that an even better opportunity presented itself in the form of my upcoming Capsule Monsters arc. I could actually have Celtic Guardian as a character and set up a Legend of Zelda story. So that’s what I did. It’s worth pointing out though that the story was not entirely drawn from Zelda. I also took inspiration from Dark Ruler Ha Des’ group of cards. Opticlops’ lore states that it is a servant of the Dark Ruler. The imps that were the common enemies came from Order to Smash, a card that shows Ha Des commanding an imp to attack. Berserk Dragon can only be summoned by the spell Deal with the Dark Ruler, which shows Ha Des striking a deal to lend out the power of his dragon. The Winged Minions are known as Ha Des’ Minions in Japan. To continue references to both Ha Des’ story and the Legend of Zelda, I originally planned to have a scene where Ha Des was defeated, but then transformed into Revived King Ha Des, similar to how Ganondorf transforms into Beast King Ganon. Sadly, I realized that Revived King Ha Des was a Synchro, which means it came out after original Yu-Gi-Oh, so it wouldn’t make sense for it to appear in Capsule Monsters. Not only was this episode dedicated to Legend of Zelda, but I made two references to Super Mario Bros, Nintendo’s other iconic series. Brutus’ quote about wanting the princess to be in another castle refered to the original Super Mario Bros. game, where it always seemed like the princess was in another castle. Also, the line at the end of the episode by the Mystical Elf about what Yugi did was an indirect reference to Mario. The M-Warrior was Mario, Princess Pireku was Princess Peach, and The Giant Turtle who Feeds on Flames was Bowser.

The list of references I made to Zelda too large to list, but here are some:

The Characters: Celtic Guardian was Link, Key Mace was Navi, Mystical Elf was Zelda, and Ha Des was Ganondorf.

The enemies: The imps represented Bokoblins, the common enemy of Zelda, Dark Bat were the random bats, and Skull Servants where ReDeads.

The Items: Shooting Star Bow – Ceal was Link’s bow and arrows, Pineapple Blast was bombs, Fairy’s Gift caught in a bottle was a fairy in a bottle, and Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade was the Master Sword.

The quotes: Many famous quotes from Zelda such as “It’s dangerous to go alone,” were fit into the episode.

In an attempt to find Yugi, Yuni and his friends decide to help the Celtic Guardian on his quest to save the princess and defeat the evil Dark Ruler. Now they must do whatever they can to stop themselves from meeting with a terrible fate.